Great Country Academician

Speaking of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, many people may not know what kind of organization it is.

But when it comes to another award related to it, more than 99.99% of the people know it.

Nobel Prize!

The famous Nobel Prize is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Moreover, the announcement of the Nobel Prize began in October.

Of course, Xu Chuan never thought that he would win the Nobel Prize now, although he has made some achievements in mathematics and physics this year, and it can even be said that he has created a calculation method at the level of a master in the field of astrophysics. Recommended by Nobel laureate Professor Sal Perlmutter.

I never thought that I could win the Nobel Prize now.

However, he had thought about another award "Crafford Award" issued by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences that is as prestigious as the Nobel Prize.

The Crafford Prize is a world science award established by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1980, funded by donations from Holger Crafford and his wife Anna Greta.

Awarded disciplines include mathematics, earth sciences, astronomy, biological sciences and arthritis, and are awarded annually for outstanding achievement in one of the disciplines.

Its scope of award is the field of science not covered by the Nobel Prize.

Although the Nobel Prize is the most influential award in the world today, it is recognized as the highest honor for researchers, especially in the field of natural sciences (physics and chemistry).

However, the fields of natural science covered by the Nobel Prize are extremely limited, only physics, chemistry, physiology and medicine.

Mathematics, which is very important to natural sciences, is not listed here (there are many rumors about this, and it will be written by writers who do not occupy words), and of course earth sciences, astronomy and other disciplines that have made a series of major breakthroughs in the 20th century are not included. .

In order to make up for this defect, in 1980, another rich man in Sweden, Crafford, decided to set up a Crafford Prize, which is awarded in the scientific fields not covered by the Nobel Prize.

Different from the almost fixed date of the awarding month of the Nobel Prize every year, the awarding time of the Craford Prize changes occasionally.

Under normal circumstances, the award ceremony is held on the "Crafts Day" in September or in May, and only one field is awarded each time, with a bonus of 500,000 US dollars, plus an award certificate.

The number of winners is also similar to the Nobel Prize, with no more than three people awarded each time.

In addition, in addition to these two months, the Crawford Awards may sometimes be placed on other dates.

For example, this year's Crawford Award was postponed from May to November.

This is related to the work efficiency of the subject committee organization of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and whether there are scientific research achievements of sufficient value in previous years.

In some respects, the Craford Award is even more difficult to obtain than the Nobel Prize, because the selection of the Craford Award in previous years is almost one person per year for each discipline. For the Nobel Prize, there are basically two or three people in a subject every year.

In particular, the two subjects of mathematics and astronomy, before 2012, these two subjects were summarized together.

In other words, after four years of reincarnation, mathematics and astronomy will compete for a Craford Award, and the difficulty level will be even higher.

In addition to these natural subject areas, the Crawford Award has another special award.

That's research in the field of arthritis.

If there are enough major breakthroughs in this field, you can also win the Craford Award. This is something in the medical field. In fact, it slightly overlaps with the Nobel Prize, but no one will mind.

This is because Mr. Crawford, the great scientist who established the award, suffered from severe rheumatoid arthritis in his later years.

It is worth mentioning, however, that the Polyarthritis Award is administered solely by a special committee, and awards and prizes are only awarded when it has been demonstrated that progress in the field has merited award.

It aims to vigorously promote the medical development in the field of polyarthritis and reduce the number of patients.

Since its establishment in 1980, the Craford Award for polyarthritis has been awarded only four times, which shows that the selection of the Craford Award is rigorous and has not been abused.

This is a world-class award. Although it has not been established for a long time, its popularity is gradually rising and it is respected by the world's scientific community.

Compared with the Nobel Prize awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Xu Chuan hopes to win the Craford Award, because he has never won this award even in his previous life.

That's right, in his previous life, he won the Fields Medal and other top mathematics awards for solving the seven millennium problems, but he did not win the Crawford Award.

The selection of this award is very strict, which is very famous.

If a candidate has worked in nuclear energy research, weapons research, war research, etc., no matter how outstanding his achievements are, he will be directly excluded from the Crawford Award.

The Nobel Prize does not have this limitation. Many nuclear energy researchers have won the Nobel Prize, but no nuclear energy researcher has ever won the Craford Award.

After receiving the call from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Xu Chuan's eyes brightened a little. After confirming the other party's intention, he quietly waited for the other party's announcement.

"Hello, dear Mr. Xu Chuan, for your great contribution to the Weyl-Berry conjecture, as well as the calculation method of actuarial celestial parameters using the Xu-Weyl-Berry theorem, and the completion of the celestial bodies in the hydrogen envelope of Betelgeuse Observation of information, you won this year's Craford Prize in Mathematics, and the Craford Prize in Astronomy."

"The award ceremony will be held at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden on December 25, 2016. You are welcome to come"

The voice of Professor Anri Rodling, organized by the Disciplinary Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, was transmitted to Xu Chuan's ears from thousands of miles away along the mobile phone, causing his heart to miss half a beat.

Even after experiencing the big scenes of the Nobel Prize awarding, Xu Chuan couldn't help swallowing, so much so that he thought he had heard it wrong.

The Craford Prize in Mathematics and the Craford Prize in Astronomy were awarded to him at the same time?

This thing that no one would believe, actually happened to him?

Historically, there has never been such a thing that the mathematics prize and the astronomy prize in the Crawford Prize were awarded to the same person in the same year.

This is incredible and crazy, no wonder the scientific committee organization of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has been postponing the awarding time of the Crafford Prize from May to December.

This significance is no less than winning two Nobel Prizes in the same year.

When the news is officially delivered in two days, the heat will explode.

After repeatedly confirming that the winning information was correct, Xu Chuan put down his phone and stared out the window.

The scientific committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences made a really bold decision, which made him a little unconfident.

This kind of thing that breaks history and unspoken rules is not something everyone is willing to do.

What's more, he's only eighteen years old this year, and he won't be nineteen until December.

Awarding a world-class award to such a young scholar is already under a lot of pressure, and on this basis, awarding him the mathematics award and the astronomy award at the same time can be said to be directly full of pressure. .

Even Xu Chuan, who won this award, couldn't help but marvel at the boldness of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

His historical record, I am afraid that no one will be able to break it in the future.

The simultaneous awarding of the Craford Prize in Mathematics and the Craford Prize in Astronomy to Xu Chuan is the result of half a year of debate organized by the Science Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Although this is bold and breaks the rules of the past, it makes sense.

Four years have passed since the Craford Mathematics Medal was awarded to Terence Tao in 2012. Although the Fields Medal was awarded once in 2014, to be honest, in these four years, excellent In fact, there is no achievement that will surely win the Crawford Mathematics Prize.

The results of the Fields Medal winners in 2014 did not completely solve a certain problem. Compared with the problems solved by those winners, their previous contributions to mathematics are the key.

Compared with the Fields Medal, the Craford Award pays more attention to complete results.

On this basis, Xu Chuan, who completely solved the Weyl-Berry conjecture, undoubtedly fell into the eyes of the scientific committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

There is no doubt that this is a 'big' mathematical conjecture.

Although its reputation is not obvious, it is far inferior to the similarly ranked conjectures such as the weak Goldbach conjecture, the twin prime number conjecture, and Hilbert's twenty-three questions.

But in terms of difficulty, the difficulty of the Weyl-Berry conjecture can be ranked among the top three among these problems.

Professor E.B. Davies, a member of the Royal Society where the sun never sets, and others once called this problem an "extremely difficult" problem, which shows that its difficulty is well-deserved.

Compared with those previous mathematical contributions, the complete Weyl-Berry conjecture is undoubtedly more important to the scientific committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

But I have to say that Xu Chuan's age is so young that the scientific committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has been arguing until May and June after the Princeton exchange meeting in February.

When the Crawford Mathematics Prize in May and June was finalized, Xu Chuan's research in the astronomy community came out.

He observed and calculated that there is another companion star in the celestial body of the red supergiant star Betelgeuse.

This was undoubtedly the most explosive news for the astronomy community at the time.

No one has ever observed such a star, although it is not impossible according to the judgment of the astronomical community in the past.

Because massive stars will expand in their later years, even if there are companion stars around them, they will be swallowed and fall into the core of the parent star.

The probability of existence of this kind of accompanying star that is swallowed by the old star but still maintains its own orbit is theoretically too small.

And more importantly, after the companion star is surrounded by the massive star in its later years, the difficulty of observing it through ordinary astronomical observation methods suddenly increases countless times.

If Xu Chuan hadn't completed the calculation by using the Xu-Weyl-Berry theorem to calculate the parameters of celestial bodies, I'm afraid it will take humans to discover this companion star.

Maybe it won't be discovered until the Betelgeuse supernova explodes.

This is normal.

Because the volume and diameter of Betelgeuse in its later years are still expanding, and with the expansion of the outer hydrogen envelope, the hidden position of the associated star will become deeper and deeper.

Some abnormal data and astronomical phenomena that can be observed now may not be observed in the future.

And this discovery immediately stunned the professors of the scientific committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which is responsible for judging the astronomy awards.

Why did the flames of war suddenly come from mathematics to them?

This year's astronomy award has actually already been decided.

Professor Roy Kerr from Canterbury University in New Zealand, and Professor Roger Branford from Stanford University in the United States shared astronomy for their research on "rotating black holes (black holes with angular momentum) and their effects" prize.

This is this year's Crawford Prize in Astronomy.

But right now, the rotating black hole (the one with angular momentum) and its impact weighs far less than the discovery of a companion star in Betelgeuse's hydrogen envelope.

Of course, if this is the case, this high probability will not affect the selected result.

At most, the Scientific Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which is responsible for evaluating astronomy awards, will confirm in advance the Krafford Astronomy Award four years later.

But it was followed by the method used when Betelgeuse was found to have a companion star within its hydrogen envelope.

As soon as the Xu-Weyl-Berry theorem method for actuarial calculation of celestial parameters was born, it surprised the entire astronomy and astrophysics circles.

No one has ever thought of using a general mathematical method to calculate the information of stars that are hundreds of thousands or even trillions of light years away.

Not just calculations, but more precise than those ancient methods.

This is the most important.

To quote Professor Sal Perlmutter, a reviewer for the journal Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics: "This is the moment when the old king abdicates and the new one begins."

A new, more precise method of counting distant objects is undoubtedly of immense importance to the astronomical community.

It's like calculus is to mathematics.

Under such circumstances, delaying the award of the Craford Award for Astronomy to Xu Chuan for another four years may cause dissatisfaction in the entire astronomical community.

Therefore, the professors of the Astronomical Science Committee, who had already completed their tasks, got busy again, discussing whether to revise the Craford Award for Astronomy.

Anyway, this year's Crawford Award has not been announced because of the delay in mathematics. It is not a big deal to modify the winners.

Moreover, these two research results, whether it is the discovery of associated stars in the hydrogen envelope of Betelgeuse, or the method of Xu-Weyl-Berry theorem to calculate the parameters of celestial bodies, are better than the previous 'rotating black holes (black holes with angular momentum) and its impact' is more important.

However, there was another problem that followed.

That is the mathematics judging committee, which has confirmed that this year's Crawford Mathematics Award will be awarded to Xu Chuan.

If they award the Craford Prize in Astronomy to Xu Chuan again this year, this year's Craford Prize in Mathematics and Astronomy will be his.

This is really too scary.

But if it is not given, the dissatisfaction of the astronomical community may greatly impact the credibility of the Craford Award.

Therefore, the Crawford Award, which was supposed to be announced in September, was delayed again and again, and it was not announced until early November.